Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Top 10 Reasons Libertarians Aren't Nice to You - Christopher Cantwell

That doesn't hold water. The State is a reflection of society.

Where you see the main purveyor being the State, I see the main purveyor being man and his own nature. Your have no State without man. Man is the source of aggression, not the State.

The Celtic leaders did not have any authority. The druids did have some by virtue of being holy men. The people followed their leaders not because they had authority but because the leaders had wisdom. However, leaders could be replaced at anytime even by assassination if the leader would not leave the office. If a leader became disabled for any reason he lost his office.

Authority was never bestowed or assumed. A leader had to prove himself at all times. Because I don't handle authority well I understand what authority is.

I am unclear on this point also, but I think the idea is along the lines of the well armed society being the polite society? As in we're all armed and some sort of non-institutionalized system of Justice ensures we measure responses to aggression ie: a tooth for a tooth (rather than a life for a tooth)?

For the record, I don't believe anarchy is possible to maintain.

Humans are too rotten to stay free for very long.

But it's difficult to live under modern governments and not see the attraction of no government.

Where did you come up with that one? Nobody said there would not aggression but the real serious aggression would not exist if there was no state.

+1

This is a temporary state of grace .

Not really.

Society, as a whole, is too ignorant of the state to be a reflection of it.

Nope the state is the main source of aggression.

That works with individuals, not factions.

I don't think that humans are too rotten to stay free it's that humans are too ignorant and lazy to stay free. Hence, it's easy for a snake oil salesman to sell the concept of the state to lazy and ignorant humans.

Oh yeah, on that I agree 100%.

That's actually been the case I've been making this whole time.

Me too, actually. Glad to hear Bristoe say that.

Wrong again. Man is.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Is man's depravity the problem? Of course! Is it concentrated by way of the power inherent to systems of government? I don't think that you can make an argument that it isn't.

So the real question is whether our depravity is more dangerous when coming down from on high as with a government, or being meted out by individuals? I don't think there is an argument to be made for one side of that question, either.

I've understood you to be saying that gov't is adopted collectively to protect from the depravity of individuals but I think that Bristoe is saying that gov't is surrendered to as a capitulation by the individual to the collective depravity.

Not really the same, unless I've misunderstood your emphasis?

You would be right if you could eliminate factions. Factions are more of a threat to liberty than any individual.

The only way to limit factions is to create so many that they overlap and cancel each other out. Anarchy doesn't have a mechanism for that.

Close. My concern isn't with individuals as much as it is with factions.

That said, the approach you state as being Bristoes is one that I agree with.

Government is a necessary evil because mankind is corrupt.

Actually it would be a tribal system at that point. And as has happened in the past almost everywhere in the world, tribes came together.

Tribes themselves had laws and government. So I guess in that case, the tribal leaders became the "state." When they banded together, the new leadership would become the state. Governing more and more as the tribes became larger and more spread out.

But I guess that's not the KIND of "state" or "government" or whatever we're talking about.

It's very difficult to have this debate when definitions are made up or changed along the way.

Maybe THAT'S the real anarchy here. In that regard, well done.

A tribe is family based. Factions are purpose based. Factions depend upon a common goal.

Today, in America, we call them special interest groups or lobbies.

I agree though, some definitions have been hard to nail down.

I don't think they're being made up or changed. I think that different people mean different things by certain phrases/words. No malfeasance intended. I like the way HAJ put it:



And that's about it, and the challenge to civil discourse especially on the innaweb.

I think we did a pretty good job on this thread likely thanks as much to those who didn't show up as it is to those who did.